Merriment

A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.
-Proverbs 17.22

I like the word merriment. It is the noun form of the adjective merry, of course, which means happy, cheerful, bright. We say merry most often when we wish someone Merry Christmas. It just sounds so pleasant and invokes cheerfulness, that I want to use it more, and bring more merriment to my everyday. Does it roll of the tongue pleasantly for you too?

I came across the word merriment the other day, and it made me think of how merry I felt while I sat here in the Boston Public Library for a little while, just absorbing the place. At a table with the iconic green lamps, I saw young students cramming for tests, I saw elderly people sitting with a book, I saw middle aged people with a few research books, and I saw a lot of tourists. I know that I was a tourist too, but when I go to a place like this I try to blend in, like a local. As if I was just taking an afternoon at the library. So I sat at this table, sent a text or two, and looked through some of the books I had just purchased at the Brattle Book Shop a short subway ride away. Along all the walls of this huge reading room are bookshelves with reference books. And at each end of the room are more areas of condensed shelves of books. The rest are elsewhere outside of this room.

I enjoyed the quiet atmosphere, especially after coming in off the busy Boston streets. I enjoyed watching people and wondering what they were doing there if they weren't obviously studying with papers and books sprawled out on the table. There's a sense of community here in a library. Even while people study, research, rest, or search the internet on their laptop, we are there for a multitude of reasons, but it's a community place. Everyone is welcome. Everyone can experience it.

After sitting there for a little while in the great reading room, I explored the rest of the building. I liked seeing the old fashioned card catalogs everywhere. The used wooden chairs and tables. The grand and beautiful architecture of the entire building. The artwork that is all over the place that could easily be in a prestigious art museum. I passed several students who were clearly on a massive scavenger hunt through all the elusive hallways and rooms of the library as I went off exploring myself. It's a huge place! I don't think I even found all the rooms that were there. Merriment was naturally felt in this place, for me.